As Neville told me Wednesday, "The Conservatives' record on women has just been abominable.''

Never mind that, since the registry was introduced in the mid-'90s, the number of women killed by their rifle-wielding partners has dropped significantly. But, even with the registry, Statistics Canada reports, one out of three femicide victims is still killed by a rifle-wielding partner.

It was in the wake of that terrible night in December, when that misogynist shooter targeted female engineering students, killing 14 women and injuring 10 more, as well as four men, that the former Conservative government, the one we used to call Progressive, struck a task force to look into violence against women.

For a frigid few days, I followed the panel around rural Quebec, where it heard horror stories from women whose partners took advantage of their isolation to terrorize and torture them.

There were testimonies from local social services groups recounting terrible murders. Meanwhile, back in the Montreal area, women were being picked off at an alarming rate by former spouses, even those served with restraining orders.

One of the things that many of the gun nuts espouse is more guns – for women. As they say, "You can't rape a .38.''

That may be true if you're walking your dog or coming home from work late at night, but it's going to land you a murder charge if you pull the trigger while being "date raped.''

In any case, it's pretty tough to be packing, say, in an aerobics class, especially when the assassin sneaks in, turns off the lights and starts firing – which is what happened in Pittsburgh this summer when three women were killed and many others injured.

What's more, there's no guarantee that an abused wife could actually get a gun, or not get it used against her.

Research shows that the determining factor in preventing most violence against women is helping them to be economically independent, through secure employment with appropriate benefits and fair wages, or decent rates of welfare, adequate social housing and daycare.

Little of which is forthcoming from the Conservative government.

That said, it has bumped up funding to some shelters this year. But that does nothing to head off violence.

In fact, according to Neville, "Their whole focus on violence against women is what one colleague refers to as `after the gavel.' That means putting more people in jail, harsher sentences, mandatory minimums, that kind of thing.''

Or as Hoeppner recently said in committee: "The best thing we can do to protect women is to make sure that people who commit crimes against them go to jail and stay there for as long as they need to." Which, not only closes the slammer door after the deed has been done, it does nothing to get women out of dangerous situations and into self-sufficient lives.

As for Guergis, well, although her resumé includes many years of volunteering at Barrie's Rape Crisis Centre, she just tiptoes the party line.

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